The Civil War and the Birth of the US Air Force | Poolesville Seniors

Name: The Civil War and the Birth of the US Air Force | Poolesville Seniors
Start: 2025-11-04T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-11-04T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Poolesville Presbyterian Church Sanctuary 17800 Elgin Road

Schedule

Tue Nov 04 2025 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Poolesville Presbyterian Church Sanctuary 17800 Elgin Road | Poolesville, MD

Join historian Brad Stone on Tuesday November 4th at 7:00 p.m. (EST) as he outlines how the Union Army, with Abraham Lincoln’s support, created the first modern air force – the Union Balloon Corps. By the end of the War the Union Balloon Corps logged over 3,000 missions, and developed aircraft carriers, real time aerial communication with battlefield commanders, and pioneered the science of aerial reconnaissance. This amazing, seldom known story involves everything from flying farm animals and torrid love affairs to women’s silk dresses. It also highlights the role Poolesville played as the home of this enterprise. This is the final 2025 presentation in a series of Civil War history accounts that Brad has presented for Poolesville Seniors.
Brad Stone is a volunteer at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD and aboard the USS Constellation in Baltimore Harbor. Over the past few years he has developed presentations on an assortment of Civil War-related topics. His talks have been given at a wide variety of venues including the Gettysburg Heritage Center, the Antietam Battlefield National Park and the U.S. Navy Museum at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC. A couple of his talks have also been televised nationally on C-SPAN3 American History TV.